


if the sea were sand alone

by Anonymous



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-19 02:18:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15500148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: "The old argument," he said softly.  "But nothing I have seen in the world has supported your famous pronouncements that love is more powerful than my kind of magic, Dumbledore."





	if the sea were sand alone

He nearly missed it: the lamp at the back of the library, the small form behind the stack of books. At first he supposed one of the younger students had fallen asleep, but as he drew closer he saw the child still awake, a book propped open in front of him, a quill held inexpertly in one hand.

It took Albus a second to place him. "Tom? Curfew's long past; you'd better be getting back to your house."

The boy went very still, and then looked up from his work. Albus had had him in class for a few months now, but could say very little about him. The boy's work was outstanding, his essays well-researched and professional, his spell-casting was marvelous. And yet he was very quiet, very polite when called upon, and made no effort to show off his talents.

"I must have forgotten, sir," said Tom Riddle finally and tonelessly. He laid down the quill.

Albus went to help him shelve the books, so as not to upset Irma in the morning, and that was when he realized that Tom was moving slowly, reluctantly, and still not meeting his eyes. In Albus's defense, and it was never much of a defense, he had a great deal else on his mind, but now he saw it: the robes and books bought secondhand, with no parental spells to hem or mend them; the uneasiness with the quill; the quietness among the other Slytherins, and the disinclination to return to that house's common room. A Muggleborn in Slytherin. It was no unheard of, and yet it could hardly have been pleasant. No wonder the boy did not call attention to himself.

"If you'd like, I can walk you back there," he said gently.

The boy's eyes were big and dark and Albus did not need Legilimency to tell that there had been every possibility the boy would simply have gone elsewhere for the night. Which, he supposed, would only have made the bullying worse. One had to face one's problems some time, and sooner was better than later, he would have said, if he could have managed to do so without choking on the hypocrisy.

"I find the stairs here are untrustworthy," he added. "And I have meant to tell you how well you're doing in class--only I wasn't sure if that would embarrass you."

Tom still looked suspicious, but at the compliment it seemed he couldn't help himself. "I--well, I find the material very interesting, sir," he said. "And, of course, you're a good teacher."

Albus snorted. "If it were all down to my teaching abilities, I wouldn't have Crabbe's older brother setting my third-year class on fire when he puts his wand to a block of cheese. I will take some small credit, but you are far beyond the rest of your classmates, and, I think, have been, since you first stepped into my classroom."

It was remarkable, the transformation that took place, the smile that Tom did not seem be able to suppress, the way his eyes shone, and Albus worried, for a second. "I--" said Tom. He looked down and bit his lip and then said, in a rush, "I was practicing, before I went to school. I understand that most of the other children don't, not until they get wands."

"They generally don't," said Albus. "But--forgive me, I was under the impression your parents were Muggles."

He looked away, and Albus saw that one of the books he'd been reading was on lineage. He really should petition the Headmaster to dispose of those, or perhaps Irma: no one needed genealogy books, regardless of which obnoxious pureblood family was donating them to the school. "I don't know, sir. I grew up in a Muggle orphanage."

"And yet you taught yourself magic."

"I didn't know that was what it was, sir," said Tom. "But--ever since I was five or six, I knew I was different, I knew I was special." He chewed on his lip and admitted, "The Muggles thought I was insane. They thought I was a freak."

That tore something inside of Albus. He'd put a hand on Tom's shoulder before he realized it.

The boy stared up at him, startled, and just as Albus was clearing his throat to tell him he was not a freak, he said, "And so I learned to--make them leave me alone. To use magic to go where they couldn't see me, or find me."

"They never tried to hurt you?" Albus asked. Ariana haunted his mind more and more these days, with Gellert's name in the papers, but now it was as she'd been as a child, so bright and so happy and then--destroyed.

"Only once," said Tom, with grim satisfaction. Then he looked up at Albus, anxious. "I won't get in trouble for that, will I?"

Albus shook his head. "It's possible, under the law. But as it sounds like it was self-defense, I'm hardly going to report you."

Tom kept looking up at him, then glanced down at his books. "Thank you, sir," he said. He closed his bag, hoisted it on his other shoulder.

"But," said Albus, as they strode from the library, "if you are having to use your talents to deter the other Slytherins--"

He jerked and looked away. "I--"

"I would recommend you inform someone of your difficulties," he said lightly. Not many children practiced magic before they were sent to Hogwarts; among Muggleborns, before they had been told what they were, anything more than an uncontrolled outburst was practically unheard of. Even if the rest of the first-years were arrayed against Tom, Albus had the feeling it would be a distinctly lopsided and unpleasant fight. "Your Head of House--"

"Slughorn doesn't like me."

" _Professor_ Slughorn."

Tom tilted his head back at Albus. "Professor Slughorn," he conceded. "He doesn't like me. It's okay. I know how to stay out of their way, all right? If I go to him it'll only get worse."

Albus nodded thoughtfully. Of course if Horace didn't look favorably on the boy, the rest of Slytherin would know they were unlikely to face consequences if they teased him for being Muggleborn. He wondered why it was that Horace didn't like Tom: very possibly the boy hadn't acted suitably impressed, or had simply had the misfortune to sort himself into Slytherin, and force Horace to address the pureblood prejudices he preferred to ignore. It appeared his response was to ignore them with renewed determination. "If you change your mind," he said, kindly, "I can always speak to him for you."

"Thank you, sir," said Tom after a minute. They continued on to the dungeons in companionable silence, and finally reached the stretch of blank wall Albus knew was the entrance to the Slytherin dormitory.

"I suppose you'd rather keep the password secret," Albus said lightly, for Tom was staring at the wall. His hand was clenched on his bag, his boyish knuckles white in the gloom.

Tom's face contorted. "I don't care who hears their stupid password." And before Albus could react, he spat, "No Mudbloods allowed," and the wall slid open, and he stormed in.

Albus wished he had not promised Tom he wouldn't speak to Horace about it. This was a terribly cruel thing to do to a child, and he did not know what he could do to stop it.

-

What he did do was check the library every night. Usually after curfew, but Slytherins weren't in the habit of taking points from their own house for even unpopular students breaking that, and Albus supposed Tom would have better luck sneaking back in if most of the other students were already in bed. Tom disliked being made to return, but he seemed to tolerate the attention and enjoy their walks back, and when Albus returned his essay with full marks the next Wednesday, Tom smiled, so suddenly and so widely he seemed to surprise himself.

Two days later, Albus asked Tom if his obvious talents and high marks had any effect on how the other Slytherins treated him. "They can't say you don't belong if you're that good with a wand, surely," he said. He'd seen Slytherins' prejudice before, of course, but it always seemed to be laughing at Muggleborns who did poorly in flying lessons, or NEWT students who elbowed one another when a Hufflepuff couldn't manage a spell on the first try--never mind that they could not either. He had no idea how they treated Muggleborns in their own house, for Muggleborns were rarely sorted into Slytherin. His mother hadn't talked about her time there before he'd gone to Hogwarts--and then she'd seemed to have no time, and now she was gone to where he could not ask her.

Tom tilted his head. "They resent it, sir," he said, and although he hid it well, Albus could tell he thought the idea that the Slytherins might respect him for besting them in magic ridiculous. "They say I must be cheating--or that I stole a real wizard's magic." Before Albus could apologize, or counsel him to give it time, Tom continued, " _Can_ you steal another wizard's magic?"

"No," said Albus. "It's a ridiculous idea, invented to excuse their bigotry."

"That's what I thought," said Tom. "They're so stupid. I thought--I thought it would be different."

"In time, it will be. Some of them, at least, will realize that it does not matter who or what your parents were."

Tom looked very skeptical about this, with all the certainty and cynicism of youth.

He would not be satisfied by platitudes: whenever Albus made a generalization about spells in class a slightly mulish look always crossed Tom's face, as if he wanted to demand that Albus prove it. And Albus was often tempted to, but the proofs would take too much time, and most of the first years wouldn't be able to follow them regardless.

But this wasn't a simple matter of the dissipation of matter. Albus knew Tom was unhappy, and he knew where that kind of discontent could lead--knew better than most--and even though he was reluctant to divulge any information on his personal life, he could sacrifice something that was already part of the public record, in the hope that it might help. In daylight, in the library, he might have said nothing, but wandering the dark corridors of Hogwarts in the chill of early December, he could say, "When I was ten, my father attacked three Muggles, and was sentenced to Azkaban--the wizarding prison--for it. And when I came to Hogwarts, that was what people thought of when they heard my name: that I was the son of a criminal, that I too must hate Muggles. But before long, they were talking about my spellwork instead, and I dare say the old rumors about Muggle hating haven't been repeated in decades." And what his father had done had been forgotten. And his father had been forgotten. "It will be the same with you, soon enough. They will talk about your talent and forget your parents."

"Oh," said Tom Riddle. Again, he seemed to think through his words, choosing them carefully. He was better at shielding his thoughts than most children were at that age, but Albus could tell there were several things he wanted to say. But he wasn't expecting the boy to ask, "Why did your father attack the Muggles, if he knew he'd get sent to prison for it?"

"I was ten, Tom," said Albus gently. "He did not tell me why. And he died in Azkaban soon after, so he couldn't--" He cleared his throat. "This is, as you might imagine, a rather personal topic for me."

Tom nodded. He looked oddly fascinated, as though he had never seen an adult so upset before--but then he might not have, growing up in an orphanage. "I'm sorry, sir," he said, and while he didn't sound like he was sorry, he sounded like he wanted to be, and that, Albus supposed, would have to be enough.

-

When on Saturday he found Tom in the library, the boy was staring down at the brittle yellow pages of a giant tome, with his arms wrapped around his body and his breath fogging the air. There had been a fresh snowfall overnight, and a chill wind had come down from the north, finding its ways through the cracks of the castle walls. Throughout the day Albus had seen students blowing on their hands, struggling with mufflers and mittens, and attempting Warming Charms with various degrees of success. He had not been inside the Slytherin common room or dormitories, but surely they were better heated than the library, with its ban on fires and unshielded candles and anything else inimical to paper.

He sat next to Tom, and cast a surreptitious warming charm on the boy. His own robes were thick, and his undergarments woolen, but even if Tom could have afforded better clothes, he would not have known what to expect this far north, and it was only going to get worse as winter deepened. "Forgive me," he said, and Tom looked at him suspiciously, although at least his teeth were no longer chattering. "I ought to have suggested this some time ago, but I suppose late is still better than never: Would you like to move your things into my office and study there? It may not be as convenient for new books, but I do have a fire going, and I promise not to tell Madam Pince if you choose to take a cup of tea or three with your studies."

Tom went very still and stared in Albus's eyes. It was unnerving, and he--he put that away in the back of his mind. He did not know much of what Tom's life had been like in the orphanage, what kindnesses Tom had been shown--or if those kindnesses had turned out to be not kindnesses at all.

"If it's a bother for you to collect me from the library every night," said Tom, "you don't have to. I can take care of myself--"

"I don't doubt that, when it comes to self-defense. You do, however, look rather cold and peaky, and however advanced for your age you might be, I do not fancy your chances against our librarian, should you try to eat or drink in the library."

"She has spells set up to detect it," Tom confessed. "It doesn't matter what you try."

Albus was surprised by neither Madam Pince's ingenuity nor Tom's attemps at breaking the rules. He was quite sure the boy had bent the rules in Muggle society before. "You wouldn't have to abandon the library altogether," he said. "I'm only offering an alternative, if you should wish it."

"I think perhaps I do," said Tom, finally and formally. "Could I--I'll check these out with Madam Pince and then we can take them to your office." He began to organize the books, but his hands were shaking; Albus reached out and caught them to warm in his own. They were so white they were almost blue, and very, very cold. He rubbed warmth into them, and Tom stared up at him as though this was a strange adult thing, which, to be fair to him, it was. A parent thing, really, Albus realized, at the same time he realized that warming up the boy's hands was the longest he'd touched anyone in ages, and abruptly let go.

Tom looked at his hands for a second, said, "Thank you," quietly, and then pulled the cards from the books to deliver to the front desk.

Albus wondered if he would regret this. It had been so long since he had let anyone in, and this was a physical intrusion of his space, his secrets. But when he opened the door to his office Tom's eyes fell on Fawkes and his jaw dropped open in such childlike wonder Albus thought he had made the right choice.

"Is that a _phoenix_?" he breathed. He stretched one hand out, and Albus would have warned him that the birds could be quite temperamental, when Fawkes warbled and perched on the boy's wrist. Tom's slender arm initially faltered beneath the weight, but Fawkes stretched over and fussed with his hair, and Tom stroked his plumage, mesmerized.

"My wand has a phoenix feather core," he told Albus. "Do you think--"

"Almost certainly not," he said gently. "There are any number of phoenixes out there donating feathers for any number of wands, and Fawkes has only given two as long as I have known him. Still--there is bound to be some affinity. My wand's core is a phoenix feather too."

Tom nodded, clearly disappointed, but he did not seem to mind when Fawkes settled on his shoulder as Tom rearranged his books on the end table Albus has transfigured into a miniature desk. Nor did he refuse a cup of cocoa and a slice of cake when Albus offered them to him, and he sat at the makeshift desk, a bird half his size peering over him, as he went back to his studies, almost as though Albus was not there in the room with him.

But he was no longer shivering.

-

It became routine and, after a time, easy. Tom sometimes still spent nights in the library, and he was able to take advantage of the near-empty Slytherin common room over the holidays, but most of the time he dropped by Albus's office after dinner with his bag, perhaps a new book, perhaps a snack saved from the table, and made himself comfortable at the transfigured desk and chair. The only sounds, for hours, was the turning of old pages and the scratchings of their quills.

Although Albus had charmed the desk and a space around it to go unnoticed by other visitors, he was overly conscious of the boy's presence, unobtrusive as he was. Yet he found it beneficial--with Tom there, Albus devoted himself to research, and grading, and correspondence, and not to endlessly ruminating over Gellert's latest atrocities, or what had happened all those decades ago. He was, and Albus did not quite like to think of other people in such terms, a welcome distraction. 

And Fawkes liked him. Albus suspected the boy had started sneaking treats in for the phoenix, and later saw that it was so: live insects trapped in pearlescent spheres that the bird gulped down with obvious pleasure.

"You're not in trouble," he assured Tom. In fact, he was proud of the boy--for spoiling Fawkes, and for the trickiness of the spell. And when they discussed the spell, which was an invention of Tom's, he felt even prouder. The boy understood so many fundamentals of magic, even if he lacked the vocabulary to describe them, and he had an interest in learning absolutely everything. Albus had never had so apt a pupil. When end of year exams were over, he realized that Tom would be leaving for the summer, and felt oddly bereft.

It was ridiculous, he scolded himself. It was hardly as though he'd be alone over the holidays, and he'd already scheduled a month for research in Persia. But he also realized that Tom, as the school year ended and the daylight lasted longer and longer, seemed determined to explore the castle grounds, to commit as much of it to memory as he could, so Albus was already facing an empty study in the evenings, on the weekends. He could not blame the boy--there were no magic forests in London, no merpeople, and back among the Muggles he would risk expulsion if he practiced magic--but even so, he found himself wishing it September again, so he could be discussing transmutation with Tom, who would be eager to learn after a stultifying summer at the Muggle orphanage.

He understood a little better Elphias's fierce fondness for his nieces and nephews, the way most other professors seemed closer to their favorite pupils than he did, or Horace did. He'd spent so long keeping himself distant from others, his friends at arm's length, his family estranged, that he had not truly realized what it would mean to let someone in. He was still reluctant to do so--Albus was sure he would have found it worrying to be attached to another adult like that, but, well, Tom was a child and children were, on the whole, harmless.

On the twenty-ninth of June, Tom knocked on his office door--he'd had to be reminded to, once or twice--and entered.

"I think I left some library books in here, sir."

"You did indeed." There were four of them, stacked on his makeshift desk. "I would have returned them for you, but I am glad you did not forget them after all; Madam Pince is not a witch to make an enemy of."

Tom didn't glance at the books Albus had gestured to, or smile at the joke. He looked down at his feet. "I didn't forget them, sir," he said. "I--it only felt like that as long as I had left something unfinished, the school year wouldn't be over. I didn't want to do the things I had to do before I left because I didn't want to leave."

"It is only two months," said Albus, although he could remember how glacially two months passed when he was Tom's age. He rose from his desk, picking up a package from its surface as he did so. "Nothing permanent. And I must confess, I was hoping to see you before you left, to give you this."

Tom stared at the burgundy and gold wrapping dumbly, and Albus said, managing to hold back a chuckle, "You can open it."

He did--with careful movements of his hands, using his nails to split the seams Albus's spells had folded and sealed together. 

Then the paper slid to the floor unnoticed.

" _Hogwarts_ ," he read quietly. " _A History._ Sir--?"

"I thought you might like to have a bit of it to take with you, over the holidays." And then, because his eyes were wide and disbelieving and he was clutching the book so hard his knuckles were white, "It's yours, Tom."

Tom surged forwards and, book still in one hand, wrapped his arms around Albus. It was unexpected, and therefore all the more touching--but very, very inept. Albus put his own around around the boy's shoulders, thinking, with a slight smile Tom couldn't see, that he had finally found something Tom was bad at.

-

The next year was much the same. Tom was back in his office on the second night of school, wanting to talk about _Hogwarts, a History_ , which he seemed to have read at least ten times over the holidays.

He also, rather shyly, offered Albus a pair of thick gray and purple argyle socks. "You had a whole lecture on how yours always unravel into the ether, sir," he said.

Albus was rather touched by the gesture, and by the fact that Tom had remembered that speech. He wasn't the only one to receive gifts, he discovered later: some of the Ravenclaws Tom knew from Herbology and was, if not exactly friends, then friendly, with, were now taking notes with pencils. He had to smile at that. It was good to see the boy getting along with others, even if his alienation from the rest of Slytherin remained. His return to the office most evenings and his quiet, bolted meals far from the other students confirmed it for Albus, for Tom would not talk of it, and the students would not bully him where Albus could see.

He bought him another book at the end of the year--this one on alchemy--and received another awkward hug. In September he initiated the hug when Tom returned, and not solely because he was hoping to teach by example. It was odd: his favorite pupils had always been sweet and kind, like Ariana, or fierce and brave, like Aberforth, or loyal and cheerful, like Elphias. They were the sort of students who stood up for others when they were bullied. They weren't terribly smart and they weren't terribly lonely. They shared themselves with others. They were, in short, the sort of person Albus might have wished he were, if he were a better person.

One night in January Tom fell asleep at his desk. There was a thud, and Albus looked over. Oneof the boy's books had toppled off the desk, and Tom wasn't retrieving it because his head was leaning against the wall, his body sprawled, as much as it could in that small chair, in sleep.

Albus made a note to himself to enlarge the chair later, and raise the desk. But first he stooped down, picked up the book, and placed it back on the stack, and, even though he ought to have known better, reached out to smooth Tom's hair.

He woke instantly. Normally he was a good natural Occlumens, but without time to prepare his defenses it leaked: the realization he'd fallen asleep, weak vulnerable stupid stupid stupid--

Albus slammed up his own shields, and Tom, with a few sharp breaths, seemed to get himself under control. Albus wanted to ask him if there were problems in the dorms or the orphanage, but he thought that now was not the right time, when Tom was so upset, and instead said, "I apologize. I thought you would not want the book left on the floor, and you seemed quite soundly asleep."

"That's all right, sir," said Tom, not sounding like he meant it. "It's your office."

He sighed. Tom wouldn't let him into his confidence as easily as that, and the boy fought back if pressed. Albus did not remember being half so prickly at that age, but then he had never feared for himself as he slept. "The book," he said. "Another genealogy?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you mind if I ask why?"

Tom bit his lip. "My mother," he said. "Before she died, she told the Muggles at the orphanage to name me after my father, Tom Riddle. And I know there aren't any wizards by that name--I've checked--but what if they heard her wrong? What if she actually said Liddell, or something like that? I was hoping I might--"

Albus reached out. "It's not so terrible, being Muggleborn."

Tom's eyes flashed, an indignant spark of _how would you know?_ , and then he said, "I want to find my father. Because if he were a Muggle, the Muggles at the orphanage could have found him--or vice versa--so obviously he's not." Then he chewed his lip again. "Or he's dead too. But I'd like to know."

"Ah. Then I think that perhaps you are looking in the wrong books: these genealogies generally cover the Sacred Twenty-Eight, and your father wasn't necessarily one of those. If you would like, I could accompany you to the library and recommend other avenues of inquiry."

"Oh," said Tom. He touched the book again. "I suppose so, sir. It would explain why I haven't had any luck so far."

Privately Albus did not think the boy would find his father, or any other family, among wizards--and he suspected that if he thought he would, he would not have offered to help. However, the search did not seem to affect Tom's school work, so Albus would not try to dissuade him. There were some difficult truths a person had to discover on their own, and as difficult as Tom's life already seemed to be, Albus could not spare him that.

-

And his life only seemed to grow more difficult. The other Slytherins still loathed him for his blood status, and Slughorn still said nothing. The Ravenclaws he associated with must have mitigated his loneliness, at least a little, but they were hardly a substitute for his housemates: Tom only had Herbology and electives with them, and most of the rest of his time was spent studying with Albus, although he chose to join the Ravenclaw's study sessions before exams. 

They all did impressively well. Scholastically Tom was nearly as accomplished as Albus himself had been at that age, and Albus did not hesitate to praise him for his accomplishments. Horace would not, and there were no parents waiting at home, or writing to Tom, to take pride in it. Albus himself remembered what it was like, to score a hundred and thirty-eight percent on his Transfiguration final, only to--

He tried not to make such comparisons. They did not hold up, and they would not help either of them.

But Tom had been a beautiful child, and only grew more so with time, and the Slytherins could not fail to notice it. In class, girls' gazes lingered on him, and boys' gazes follow the girls' gazes angrily. And while they would all deny it, as most purebloods were wont to do, blood status, or even magical abilities, had nothing to do with physical attraction. Miss Rosier might be sitting next to a young wizard of impeccable lineage, but her eyes would wander to where Tom sat, for that young man with the impeccable lineage also had a ripe crop of pimples and an ill-conceived attempt at a mustache but not, alas, a chin.

Albus would have found it funny, but the boys, and quite frequently the girls, acted upon that attraction by becoming crueler, blaming Tom for being so handsome and smooth-skinned. His voice had not yet dropped, but it was clear, and it was eloquent, and it had no trouble pronouncing countercurses. 

There was, upon looking at Tom and realizing that he would become a breathtaking young man, a doubt that worried Albus, before he put it out of his mind. He still thought of Tom as a child, and of course he was not attracted to him--and he realized that it was not only Gellert's pretty face or golden curls that had enticed him so, nor the rapid fire exchange of ideas, but the dreams of the future, the frivolity and whimsy, the laughter, the light, that had drawn him in. And Tom was in many ways cold and dour and old before his time. He could be charming, but Albus had seen the resentments beneath, and it was not a charm that could survive sustained contact. Gellert had been all too easy to love, but Tom--no.

Nevertheless, when he received the Patronus from the hospital wing, he rushed through the corridors and found Tom in a room off the main wing, his back covered in poultices and bandages, a large patch of skin on one arm pink from being regrown, and radiating so much anger and embarrassment and vulnerability when he looked up and saw Albus standing there and said, quietly, "There were too many of them."

Albus was torn between anger at the students who had done this to Tom, and relief that the injuries were not as bad as he feared. He succumbed to the latter, and plopped down on the bed beside Tom, and hugged him.

Tom went stiff for a second, and Albus could feel him, incandescent with rage, and then he began crying into Albus's shoulder, tears that went on and on and that he seemed furious at himself for crying, even as he clung to Albus with a surprising strength, even as he would not let go.

-

Filius burst into his classroom. "Albus," he panted. "Staff meeting--staffroom--now."

Then he seemed to notice the other students, and said, "Don't send them back through the southeast second floor corridor."

They were Hufflepuffs, but even so Albus was certain some of them would try very hard to make their way to the corridor and see what their teachers did not want them to see, so as the senior professor he enlisted Filius's help in walking the children back and convincing the portrait that kept their Common Room closed off to not let any students out without a professor's permission.

"Now may I ask what this meeting is about?" he asked, as he and Filius hurried back to the staff room.

"One of the students has been found dead," said Filius, and for a second Albus felt his heart seize up in terror, before Filius continued, "Myrtle Warren."

"Poor girl," Albus said, treacherously relieved that it wasn't Tom. Myrtle had been Muggleborn too, he remembered, but the Slytherins hadn't really progressed beyond sneers and slurs with most Muggleborn students. Even with the poisonous ideology they'd imbibed, most children were not ready to do violence over something that impersonal. Insults and accusations and quidditch, yes; blood status, no. And the ones who had enough hatred to do so were usually kept in check because they knew what the teachers would do if they found out--

"Sir!"

Albus turned and saw Tom, his face stricken, and flushed from running. Filius had gone on a few more steps, but stopped to wait.

"Sir," said Tom again. "I have to speak with you, I have to--"

"Later," said Albus gently, placing his hands on Tom's shoulders. "There's been--well, you've heard something of what's happened, haven't you?"

Tom squeezed his eyes shut, and then, opening them, looked at Filius, and then back at Albus. "Later," he repeated, tonelessly.

"You may wait in my office, if you would feel safer there," he said. Tom's mental shields were up, his dark eyes opaque, but Albus could tell he was scared--could feel him shaking like a leaf. "Tom. It will be all right."

He would have stayed there, tried to calm him down--to hug him--but Filius was there, and the rest of the staff was waiting, and Tom, he believed, was resilient. He would return after the meeting.

-

It was the grimmest meeting Albus could recall in his nearly forty years of teaching at Hogwarts. Armando Dippet seemed shrunken in his chair, his voice quavering as he laid out what they knew. The girl had dropped dead, as far as anyone could tell. Stone-dead, as there were some similarities to petrification, only this wasn't reversible. Olive Hornby had found her but insisted she had nothing to do with her death, said she was just teasing Myrtle about her always going off to cry--and then she had broken down and bawled all over Galatea and Horace and the Headmaster.

"There was no sign of who or what did this to her, and Hornby seems too genuinely shaken to have been involved--and her friends say she'd just pushed open the door before she began screaming."

"They are her friends," said Albus mildly.

"Hornby's a good girl," Ernestine protested.

Horace snorted. "She's a bit of a bully, and a giant snob," he said, like that wasn't the cauldron calling the kettle black, "but she wouldn't ruin her career prospects with murder."

Albus cleared his throat. "Have the parents been notified?"

Armando shook his head. "She hasn't any. She spent the last ten years in a Muggle orphanage."

"Both the Ministry and the board of governors have been told. They will decide which steps they deem necessary, and we will comply with what is reasonable." Armando shook his head again. "In the meantime, I am instituting a curfew on all students, and we will be escorting them from lesson to lesson, and to meals. They will otherwise not leave their Common Rooms." Albus would speak to Armando alone to get dispensation for Tom. Some of the other professors had different concerns, as evinced by their groans when Armando continued, "And Quidditch will be cancelled pending the outcome of the inquiry."

Albus coughed. "If there is something or someone in the school that is attacking students, holding large and noisy gatherings would seem distinctly unwise." 

It quieted most of the grumbling and Armando gave Albus a small smile before saying, "If you would not mind, I would like to speak to the Heads of House. We'll convene later, after the Ministry has had its say."

The staff room seemed chilly and empty when it was just the five of them there. Filius still looked devastated, Galatea looked like she would have liked to leave with the rest of the teachers so she could get back to her office and delve into her texts to see what sort of spell or creature might have killed the girl, and Horace looked distinctly uncomfortable. Any sort of unpleasantness did that to him, whether it was Slytherin losing fifty points for celebrating one of Grindelwald's victories a little too publicly, or Professor Kettleblack getting drunk and disorderly at the Christmas feast last year, removing his enchanted arm, and waving it in everyone's faces.

He looked even more uncomfortable when there was a knock on the door and Nott, the seventh year Slytherin prefect, came in. "There's a curfew, Terrence," he said. "You're not supposed to be out of your dorms. We wouldn't want anything to happen to you, your grandfather is going to be irritated enough with the school as it is."

"It's all right, sir," said Nott. "Besides, my grandfather would want me to share any information that could catch the culprit as soon as possible."

"The culprit?" Horace sat straight up in his chair, mustache aquiver. "You're forgiven, my boy. Now--if you'll tell us what you know--"

Nott darted a look at Albus, and then faced Horace and the Headmaster, and said, "The rumor is that she was petrified, sir, and that sounds like a basilisk, and--well--" Another look at Albus, dark and rodent-like. "--some of the younger students say Tom Riddle can talk to snakes."

"Ridiculous." Albus was on his feet before he realized it. "One Muggleborn student is dead, Terrence, and you have decided to take the opportunity to blame it on another?"

"No," said Terrence. "No, sir, only that's what they say, and--and, sir, after what Bl-- he took one of our pranks the wrong way, sir, and swore revenge--"

"They're pranks now, are they?"

Terrence shrunk. "Yes! Pranks! And he--sir, he--he doesn't have a sense of humor, sir, and he's not right in the head--"

"Nott," said the Headmaster sharply. "That is one of your fellow students you are speaking of!"

Nott looked down at his feet.

"It is a bit of a preposterous claim," said Galatea, after a minute. "Parselmouths are quite rare, and there are spells that can mimic the lethal effects of a basilisk, after all." She frowned. "Of course, Mr. Riddle would be quite capable of casting such a spell. He's one of the most talented wizards I've ever taught. But he's remarkably well-behaved: most of my older classes will try to accidentally on purpose jinx one another during practical lessons, and he always shields, never retaliates."

"Yes," said Filius. "Extremely well-behaved for that age. It's almost uncanny."

Galatea looked at him with a sudden, pensive frown.

Armando Dippet cleared his throat. "Horace, you're head of his house. Surely you know him best."

Albus wanted to object that he knew Tom best, that Horace disliked the boy because he had no useful connections, but Horace let out a sigh at least a century too old for him. "Nott, please leave us."

Nott nodded sharply. He looked--he did not look triumphant, and he did not look scared. He looked relieved.

Horace smoothed the fabric at the knees of his robe, not glancing back up until the door had shut. He looked ashamed and guilty. He met Albus's gaze for a moment, no more. "As Filius says, he's been well-behaved these past five years. But when I went to meet with him in Wool's Orphanage, the head there, Mrs. Cole, told me a few things about him. About the Muggle children. He scared them, you see."

Albus swallowed down his anger. "He was practicing magic before he came to Hogwarts. Muggle children generally don't understand magic, and don't like it, and--"

"They were terrified of him, Albus." Horace's face was white, his eyes huge and sincere and silver. "Two children he went 'exploring' with one summer wouldn't speak of it afterwards, had nightmares for months. One of the other orphans' rabbits hanged itself from the rafters. Tom and its owner had had an argument the day previous." He swallowed. "And when I saw him, he told me that he could make animals do anything he wanted them to. And he--Albus, he had a rudimentary control of mind magic. He had a spell that would work like Veritaserum, on anyone unprepared for it. At the age of eleven."

"I," said Albus, but all he could hear was Gellert whispering in his ear, _It's all right, I did it to a dog at Durmstrang._ At the time he'd thought he meant as schoolwork, and felt sick that Gellert had been made to, but later had realized he should have paid more attention to the fact that Gellert hadn't said he'd done it for class.

"I didn't say anything because I thought he might be different with wizards than he was with Muggles," continued Horace. _You didn't say anything because he didn't think he'd be in your house,_ Albus did not correct him, _not a Muggle-born. You didn't think he'd be your problem._ And yet--Slughorn's dislike of a clearly gifted student now made sense, as did his pointed expression of it. Signal to the students that a child was not desirable company before he could use his powers to convince them otherwise. They would go nowhere with Horace if they associated with Tom, and even for the youngest Slytherins it was clear they should please their head of house. And Tom couldn't do anything too obvious without being expelled. Albus reviewed all their conversations, trying to remember if he'd said anything that might indicate Tom had tried. "And I should have said something to you, Albus, only I believed he might have truly changed, that you would never be taken in a pretense."

If only they knew. "An admirable impulse," he said finally. "And--yes, I can see why this would give credence to Nott's testimony, but I suppose we owe Tom a hearing." He never wanted to see the boy again. But what Albus wanted was not important. What Albus wanted was frequently not to be trusted. He should have remembered that. "He is in my office; he was out, when the other students were returning to their common rooms, and given the rumors, and the distance involved, I thought he might be safer there."

"No one could blame you," said Horace with such understanding that Albus wanted to turn his eyelids inside out. Horace could have said something, but chose to ignore it, to let the boy fester in Albus's blithe ignorance, his good nature. 

"Galatea, would you mind? And--Filius, could you accompany her? If he won't surrender his wand, you might need the support."

There was a second when both of them seemed on the verge of protesting that they were wizards of power and experience, but either the grim look on Albus's face, or the scared one on Horace's, made them think better of it.

"I'm sorry," said Horace again. Albus shook his head. He would have dearly liked to tell Horace to shut up, to stop apologizing. It wouldn't bring Myrtle Warren back from the dead. It wouldn't make the coming confrontation any easier.

When the door opened, Tom's eyes found Albus's first. He was whiter in the face than ever, and his hands seemed to clench involuntarily, and when they relaxed they trembled. He looked terrified, and young.

Filius summoned up a chair for him, equidistant between the five adult wizards. Tom swallowed, and it seemed for a second that he wasn't going to sit down. He'd never been part of a disciplinary hearing, or seen a wizarding trial, but he knew why he was here. It was as good an admission of guilt as anything.

Albus looked away, but he could feel the boy's gaze, cold and heavy as a pestle.

"Tom," Armando said gently, and finally the boy looked away. "We've heard some disturbing rumors. We were hoping you could clarify a few things for us."

"Sir," said Tom. He swallowed again. "I was on my way to tell Professor Dumbledore, sir."

 _Oh,_ thought Albus, his gaze snapping back to Tom, who met it, his eyes very dark in his very white face, _don't bring me into this._

But Tom, although Horace had intimated he was a Legilimens, did not hear and did not comply. "I summoned a basilisk," he said, finally. "I could hear it--I'm a Parselmouth, sir--and I wanted to see if I could."

"You wanted to see if you could?" repeated Galatea. "It's one of the most lethal creatures out there."

"I'd invented a spell to protect my eyes," Tom said, and there was a murmur at that. For a second Albus found himself proud of the boy's cleverness and daring, but then he had reminded himself that Tom had chosen to employ those in calling up a monster. Killing a girl. "So I could see it, without dying." He swallowed again. "I thought the bathroom was empty. I didn't realize there was anyone in there until she threw the door open and before I could say anything, she was--" His eyes sought Albus's again. "I didn't mean to," he said, with a perfectly passable imitation of anguish. "It was an accident."

It was an accident.

"She's still dead," said Albus, not entirely sure which teenage boy he was talking to. Tom, Gellert, Aberforth. Himself.

With that confession, Galatea and Filius escorted Tom back out. Albus didn't quite realize they'd left Tom's wand with him until they came back, and he remarked upon the unfamiliar wood in his hand. A phoenix feather core, he remembered, and slightly shorter than his.

"We will have to consider," said Armando, "what to do with him."

"He said it was an accident," said Filius.

Horace snorted. "Do you believe him?"

"It's quite easy to kill someone by accident when you have a basilisk," said Galatea. "It is immensely foolish to have a basilisk in the first place, but students of that age...."

"I have no doubt that her death was accidental," said Horace wearily. "But others would not have been. And he still has the basilisk."

"We'll place roosters around the castle," said Galatea. "It's more sensible than trying to kill it ourselves." And then, "Do you truly believe he has it in him to murder fellow students?"

What the other Slytherins had been doing to Tom would test the patience of a saint. And Tom, it was now quite clear, was no saint, and never had been.

"He's just a boy," said Filius. "Surely we can't send a child to Azkaban. And you saw how upset he was, Headmaster."

But how upset had he been, truly? A clever actor--

"We can't keep him here," said Horace. "He summoned up a monster to intimidate his housemates--"

"We have to keep him here."

They all fell silent, and looked to Albus. Armando cleared his throat, and said, "I know you are close to the boy--"

"That has nothing to do with it--and might very well argue the opposite, given that I had no inkling of what he was or what he could do. However, we must consider that if Tom Riddle is expelled from Hogwarts, we will not know where he goes, or who he meets with." A sunny visage in summer, golden curls, books and letters and legends and a glorious future. The greater good. "The best way to mitigate the danger is to keep him here, where we can watch him. Where we can take more decisive action should it be warranted."

"And you don't think it warranted now?" said Horace, but Filius, and Galatea, and Armando all agreed with Albus. 

"We should keep him locked up until the Ministry comes to take his statement, of course," said Armando.

"And until the basilisk is dead."

"Of course, Galatea. Albus?"

"I'm sorry," he said. "If you might excuse me--I have a previous engagement."

Filius nodded understandingly. It was still early, and no longer necessary that all the heads of house kept a close watch on the school. And left unsaid was that for Albus, this was a betrayal of trust more than for them.

If only they knew.

He stopped by his office to give Tom's wand to Fawkes. "You cannot let him have it," he said. "Burn it, if necessary." Fawkes crooned softly and nuzzled at his fingers. Albus felt himself unworthy of such kindness and devotion. "Thank you, old friend."

And then he went down to Hogsmeade for a drink.

-

There were very few people in the Hog's Head on a Thursday afternoon, but when Aberforth saw Albus's face he sent them packing all the same.

"Thank you," said Albus, sitting at the bar.

Aberforth sniffed and pushed a tumbler full of Firewhisky at him. "They'd have left soon enough. You're in a mood."

Albus emptied half the glass. Aberforth peered down at him. Sometimes it struck Albus how alike the two of them looked, as if Aberforth was a scruffier, reedier, far less fashionable mirror of him. His face was somewhat narrower, his hair was more brown than red, his nose unbroken, and yet the resemblance was inescapable. To him, anyway. It often seemed like no one else could see it.

Aberforth dragged a stool up behind the counter and leaned his knobby elbows on it. "What'd he do now?"

There was that, too. For years and years Albus had been the smart one, and yet the one time it had truly mattered, the one time Ariana's life had depended on it, he'd been an idiot. He looked at his brother, into blue eyes so like his own, and shook his head. "It's not--Him," he said. "I've just been a blind fool again."

And the whole story came spilling out of him in the empty pub. Aberforth kept refilling his glass, while barely touching his own, but said nothing. It felt good, somehow, to tell someone everything, and he realized, somewhere in his increasingly befuddled mind, that perhaps it might have helped to tell someone about Gellert. But the only person he could tell already knew what had happened, and was unlikely to feel sorry for Albus. 

Well. There was one other person he could tell, but the same was true for him, and he was somewhere in Europe, and Albus couldn't face--

Aberforth let the silence stretch out a while before clearing his throat. "When Dad did what he did to those Muggle kids," he said, and Albus realized that Aberforth must have been drunker than he thought, "did you expect it of him?"

"What?"

"Did you have any idea that our dad was the type of person who could do that?"

He sounded impatient, so Albus answered quickly, answered honestly, even though the whiskey was making his throat burn. "No. I mean, with Ariana--I understand, but no."

Aberforth nodded and poured them both some more. "And Grindelwald?"

"I should have seen--"

"Oh, shut it." Albus gaped at him. "I saw what kind of person he was--or thought I saw, anyway--and even so I wasn't expecting him to use an unforgivable curse on me. Not with you standing there, at any rate. You can't predict what everyone'll do all the time. People aren't your Transfiguration matrixs."

"Matrices," Albus corrected automatically.

Aberforth snorted. "You're so smart you think that if you didn't see this coming, it must have been because it was being concealed from you. Except how can you be that smart and be fooled by an eleven-year-old boy?"

Albus drank more. "He's not an ordinary boy--"

"Oh?" Aberforth poured some more. "You still think he had you fooled for five years, except you also told me all the signs were there. So maybe he was always like that, and you didn't want to see. Or maybe he's more than the one thing. Not just victim, not just villain. People are complicated."

And Aberforth just might have been right, because Albus would never have expected a cogent argument from his brother on the complexities of the human personality. Or anything not to do with goats, really. "That's rather wise," he said. He had an overwhelming urge to lay his head down on the bar.

Aberforth shrugged. "It's how I came to grips with you, afterwards."

"Ah," said Albus.

Aberforth helped him up the narrow, splintery stairs, and into one of the dusty rooms. Albus fell straight into a dark sleep. At one point he dreamed that Tom was shaking his shoulder and demanding Albus wake up and look at him, but it passed, and he remembered nothing else.

-

Tom returned to the library. The next two years were relatively uneventful, for Hogwarts--or perhaps Albus was instead focusing on the news out of Europe, as Gellert's power grew and grew. He noticed that Tom received an almost unprecedented number of OWLs, that Tom took NEWT Transfiguration and did outstanding work. The boy still had acquaintances among the Ravenclaws, who did not forsake him entirely. In his sixth year, he dated one of the Ravenclaw girls, and, in his seventh, one of the boys. At Easter holidays he left school with them. Both were from old pureblood families, and Albus wondered if Tom realized how transparent he was being.

He didn't truly spend much time worrying about the boy, though, until Armando called another staff meeting in May and said, "Tom Riddle has applied for your job, Galatea."

Galatea frowned. "Well, if any seventh-year knows the subject back and forth, it's him."

"Well, yes," said Horace. "He knows it from the Defense and the Dark Arts perspectives. Headmaster, you cannot be serious."

"He's caused no trouble since the basilisk incident," said Filius. "If we were truly giving him a second chance, we wouldn't hold it against him."

But he was outnumbered. That was clear long before Armando spoke--and first summoned a handkerchief, coughed into that, and shook his head. "As Galatea has said, he is capable. As Filius has said, he has behaved himself. And as Albus has said, it might be prudent to keep an eye on him." But Albus had not meant that. He had anticipated two years more of Tom, but did not know if he could continue to share the castle with him, come face to face with a reminder of his failings. "But all things considered, it is too great a risk. The only question is how to put it to him."

"He's too young," suggested Galatea.

"He'll only come back later and request the post again," said Albus. Whatever Aberforth might have said, Albus knew Tom Riddle well enough to know that.

And yet Armando looked to be considering it--after all, it would no longer be his problem after he'd retire.

"We'll put it to the Board of Governors," said Horace, and Albus found himself surprised by the simplicity--and the nastiness--of the suggestion. Galatea rolled her eyes, but Filius looked puzzled, so Horace explained. "The Board's full of Sacred Twenty-Eight families. Enough of them would object to a Muggleborn professor that he couldn't get a majority vote. We won't anger the boy, and we won't have to hire him."

"Yes," said Armando. "Yes, that could work."

-

Albus was almost glad to be dragged out of another visit from the Ministry to sit in on the board meeting.

"You're so terribly young," said Armando, patting Tom's elbows, "and, of course, we want the board's approval as they have demanded the resignation of professors halfway through the year in the past."

Tom smiled down at the old wizard, but Albus could see his eyes were narrowed in suspicion. It did not help that Horace radiated a certain gloating smugness, or that Filius had bowed out. He'd confessed to Albus over lunch that he could not watch.

"We should tell him no outright," he'd said. 

Albus had nodded. "Yes, it does seem rather cowardly."

"The word I'd have used was cruel," Filius had said, and Albus supposed it was, at that. Whatever he might have been, or done, Tom Riddle had spent seven years with purebloods looking down on him for his name and his lack of connections, and to cap his time at Hogwarts by forcing him to experience it again--

But Tom was resilient. Albus knew that.

Still, even he was somewhat taken aback by the theater of it: the twelve governors arrayed at a long, gleaming table, all on one side, with Armando in the middle, and seats for the heads of House at the ends. Tom wasn't even accorded a podium at which to stand: he had to face all sixteen of them and make his case.

Which he did with aplomb, and a hint of anger in his voice. Perhaps only Albus picked up on it--he knew Tom better than anyone, or at least he'd once thought he had. And Tom's anger was familiar, but it had also always seemed, well, normal for a boy in his situation.

Albus was beginning to doubt the wisdom of this, but it went wrong in a way he couldn't expect when a familiar, dreadful, drawling voice said, "I don't know why you bothered, Armando. You're not going to find a better candidate for the job." And then Abraxas Malfoy stood up and extended his hand to Tom. "Congratulations, Professor Riddle."

And Tom looked so thunderstruck that Albus knew he hadn't orchestrated this either. "I don't think you're allowed to call me 'professor' yet," he said, but approached the table and leaned over it to take Abraxas's hand regardless. "It hasn't been voted on."

"It certainly has not," snapped Cygnus Black. "My grandchildren have told me about this mud--Muggle-born. You may not care if he poisons pureblood children, Malfoy, but I do."

"Cygnus," said Horace weakly. He'd been gawping like a fish, though Albus did not know why he was surprised. Pollux had been a snide and outspoken prefect when Horace had first started teaching, and became one of the Slug Club's earliest members, and presently Walpurga and the younger Cygnus were rather vocal with their views when they thought no one was around to take points from Slytherin. Perhaps Horace thought they usually didn't say such things in polite society.

And, Albus saw from the smug smile on his pale, pointed face, Abraxas knew it. More of the old pureblood families voted to confirm Tom after that: Cygnus had made his prejudices explicit, and while certainly more of the governors shared those prejudices than voted against Tom, at least some were reluctant to acknowledge them in front of other witches and wizards of respectable families, and Hogwarts staff whose own pedigrees weren't quite so pure, and who would, after all, be teaching those wizards' and witches' heirs. 

There was a flush of happiness on Tom's face, but his smile bared his teeth. "Thank you," he told the assembled governors. "I will try to be worthy of your vote of confidence."

"Well," said Armando, clearing his throat, "well--"

Cygnus Black snarled something at Abraxas and stormed out of the room. Abelard Lestrange and Pulchra Yaxley hurried at his heels.

Albus looked at Abraxas, who met his gaze with a glimmer of arrogance, and then returned his attention to Tom. "I'm sure you'll surpass all our expectations," he said. "Do you have any plans for the summer?"

"I--I didn't make any," said Tom, stumbling, and that was when Albus remembered that as far as Muggles were concerned, he was of age, and he had no place at the orphanage any longer--not that he had ever wanted to return there, but if he had failed to get the Defense Against the Dark Arts job he'd have had to find something else fast. He didn't have family to stay with, and no close friends, even among the Ravenclaws. Albus felt briefly remiss--but with Tom's OWLs and his anticipated NEWTs, he could have done anything.

Abraxas was saying, "You'll have to spend some weeks at the Manor--I promise you, not all the Sacred Twenty-Eight are like Cygnus and Gladiolum and the rest." And Tom was nodding. "Lucille--my wife--hates that sort of society. They're so dull, counting the generations and calculating percentages."

Albus would have laughed, if he'd felt capable of it. The Malfoys were just as family-proud as any other member of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. He himself had been a year above Tiberia at school, a few more years above Brutus. He did, however, dimly recall some sort of contretemps among the Slytherins about Mrs. Malfoy being a half-blood. Which perhaps explained Abraxas's delight in thwarting some families who were a great deal more strict in their marriages, to the point of occasional literal insanity. 

But Abraxas hardly needed a complex motivation. He had seen how powerful Tom was and he had made Tom grateful to him. Beneath their coats of arms, their expensive black robes, and their cultivated accents, the Malfoys were, and always had been, power-hungry hypocrites. And they and Tom Riddle deserved one another.

And yet Albus could not resist, when Tom had finally left the room, and the rest of the governors were rising to their feet, and Horace and Armando were conducting a low and half-panicked conversation, meeting Abraxas's cold gray eyes again.

Abraxas smiled without it reaching said eyes, and made his way across the room. He'd apparently matured enough in the last ten years to not taunt Albus about his victory immediately, and so it was up to Albus to begin the conversation.

"While I can't say I'm surprised that you took it upon yourself to speak for the entire board of directors, I am pleased that you pushed them into tolerance." He only wished it had been another Muggleborn: one who wasn't angry, one who didn't use his considerable powers to bully others and get his way. One who hadn't fooled Albus into thinking he was something other than he was. "And I can't say it was something I would have expected of the boy you'd been in school."

Abraxas put his hand on Albus's arm, just above his elbow. It was a tight, cold touch, and Abraxas kept smiling. "Dippet introduced him by his full name," he said. "My father--you remember my father, don't you?"

"Vividly," Albus murmured.

"My father was one of the judges at the trial of Marvolo Gaunt," said Abraxas, and his grip squeezed tighter. The name Gaunt didn't mean anything to Albus--there were no Hogwarts students of that name, and he didn't follow the genealogies at all--but the name Marvolo was familiar. It didn't take him long to place it at all. "And at the trial of Morfin Gaunt. The Gaunts, you see, tried to have him disqualified for being a blood traitor or some other nonsense, like it was still the seventeenth century. My father thought it was hilarious--repeated the whole story over dinner. It's the sort of thing that sticks in the mind. As does the name of the Muggle Morfin attacked."

"Tom Riddle." Tom had told Albus the story of his naming: Albus had got the impression he'd demanded it of the orphanage workers until they got tired of telling it. He wondered if Tom had had his nascent powers then, searching in the Muggles' minds for a glimpse of his mother. Poor girl. No wonder she had chosen to remain in London with the Muggles, rather than return home.

Abraxas leaned in even closer, and whispered in Albus's ear. "He's the heir of Slytherin." Albus shut his eyes. He should have guessed. The revelation about Tom being able to speak to snakes had been overshadowed in his mind by the revelation that Tom was--Tom.

At least the basilisk was dead.

"You sound extraordinarily proud of yourself," he said.

"Shouldn't I be?"

Albus opened his eyes. This close Abraxas looked very young: he wasn't even thirty yet, and his silver-blond eyelashes seemed almost innocent, in a way that nothing else about him ever did. "Be careful with him," said Albus. He wasn't sure if it was for Abraxas's sake or Tom's, and from the tiny frown line that appeared between Abraxas's white eyebrows, neither was he.

-

There was someone else in the room when Albus awoke.

He was initially disoriented--there had been a Dreamless Sleep potion, he'd demanded a Dreamless Sleep potion, and the Healer had been too terrified of the wizard who'd defeated the Dark Lord Grindelwald to tell him no--and struggled into consciousness and an upright position at the same time. "This is a closed ward, Tom."

The Healers had extinguished the candles on their way out, and the only illumination was a pale yellow spell in a lantern by the door. It was behind Albus, and cast his shadow over Tom's face. Even so, Albus could see he looked horrible. His face was drawn and his dark eyes were rimmed with red and his hands were clenched into bony fists. "You almost died." His voice was hoarse.

"It's one of the risks of dueling Dark Lords," said Albus, and yawned.

"You almost _died_."

"You said that already," said Albus. "It's--" He checked for his pocket watch, but his robes had been rather a mess after the curses Gellert had thrown at him, and he was swaddled in standard issue white patient ones, and so the pockets were watchless. 

'Six in the morning," said Tom. Albus was surprised they'd let him sleep that long. "I've been here since midnight."

"Have you really?" Albus was amazed they'd let him in, then realized they had not, in fact, let him in. "Why?"

"Because you almost died," snarled Tom. "You went off to challenge Gellert Grindelwald on your own, without even saying anything to--anyone," he finished, and in that "anyone" Albus heard "me."

He'd left a letter for Aberforth in the event of his death. Somehow he did not think that would placate Tom. "I didn't know you cared."

Tom stared at him as though he were an idiot. "You were the first person who ever looked out for me. The first person who ever bought me a gift. The first person who--" Albus remembered that awkward hug of seven years ago, the hug of a boy who'd never hugged before, never been hugged. "--the first person to care for me. I thought."

And despite the last two years, despite Albus's neglect, he had shown up at St. Mungo's when Albus was hurt. Had probably broken into the ward illegally. Albus was on guard against manipulation, but Tom's anger had always been genuine, his resentments almost palpable when it would be better to keep them hidden.

"I did. I do. I apologize." Tom sniffed and rubbed the back of his hand against his nose. "I was fairly certain I would not die. I've always been more powerful than Gellert."

"You were hurt," said Tom, not remarking upon Albus's use of Gellert's first name, his assessment of his powers.

Albus shrugged. It had been, if not nothing, then far from the worst Gellert had done to him. "How are the Malfoys?"

Tom smiled. "Nice," he said, possibly the first and last person to ever use that word to describe that family. "I have a room bigger than the dormitory in Slytherin, and the grounds stretch in every direction, and their library is--" Their library was marvelous, even Albus had to admit. "And they like me."

It had been a grave miscalculation to push the boy away, Albus realized, in light of Tom's confession, in light of the relationships Tom had started among pureblood Ravenclaws. If Tom had cleaved so thoroughly for being the first adult to care for him, what might he do for the first family to welcome him into their home. "Even Tiberia?"

"Even Tiberia," said Tom, and then lifted his chin. "I'm not an idiot. I know Abraxas thinks I can help him take over the Ministry eventually. But that doesn't mean they don't like me."

"Of course not." But hearing that made Albus's very bones ache: the tacit acceptance of being used in exchange for having a home. "But--Tom, when I was your age--and this also pertains to why I couldn't face you after Myrtle's death--there was someone who I thought liked me very much, only he didn't--"

Tom shook his head. "It's not like you and Grindelwald."

It took Albus more than a second to collect himself. And to say, _Of course you think that, it's what they want you to think. It's what he wanted me to think._ "How do you know about that?" he asked instead, in a strangled whisper.

"Your brother--Aberforth--told me. He said you would be distant because of it. That I shouldn't take it personally."

Albus would have bet that he had regardless. And that Aberforth had not used the word distant, but something more derogatory. "When?"

"That night."

"You were locked in a spare classroom and deprived of your wand." Albus remembered the dream he'd had that Tom was there, trying to get his attention.

Tom heaved a very adolescent sigh, and stood up. And then he seemed to stand even further up, and up, and up.

Albus bent over and saw that the boy's feet were floating a good eight inches off the floor. He felt a prickle of fear. He wondered what other talents the boy was keeping secret: Albus had shown off everything he was capable of at Hogwarts, and Gellert everything he was capable of at Durmstrang--which had, of course, led to his expulsion. "You can fly."

"Yes," said Tom, settling back down on the floor. "I can fly. Without a wand. I've been able to since I was nine."

"Impressive," murmured Albus. It was. And he could hear the boy's hunger for praise, as loud as it had been in his first year. But he'd kept this to himself: because he didn't think it would be impressive to others, or because he knew it would be useful? They'd thought themselves safe, taking his wand away and locking the door, and he'd been able to escape all the same. To fly down from the sixth floor and into Hogsmeade, where he could have taken a wand from any drunk and vulnerable wizard.

But he hadn't stolen a wand, Albus reminded himself. He'd tried to talk to Albus--he had talked to Aberforth, and Albus wished he'd been sober enough to be present for, or perhaps eavesdrop upon, that conversation--and then he'd flown back. And no one had known he'd been gone. "Are there any other secrets you've been keeping?"

Tom's mouth turned down. "I can talk to snakes," he said. "But after the basilisk, I think you know that."

"It was rumored. It's good to have confirmation that that was how you controlled the monster."

That, if anything, seemed to annoy Tom more. He glanced away. His hands balled into fists. And then he said, as if hyppogriffs were dragging it out of him, "I found my family."

At least that was something Abraxas Malfoy couldn't give him, Albus thought. "You did?"

"My mother's father, Marvolo. I found his name, tracked him to Little Hangleton two years ago. I'm not Muggleborn after all." And yet he'd let everyone continue believing he was--although it would be difficult to convince most Slytherins otherwise, and of course not too many of the other houses cared. "I met my mother's brother, Morfin. He lives in a filthy hovel, and yet he thinks he's somehow superior because he has this stupid old ring. I didn't tell him I was his nephew, I don't want to be related to that--"

Life would be so much easier if one could choose one's family, Albus thought, but of course that was what Tom seemed to have been trying to do, the last few years.

"--and he said my mother had run off with a local Muggle. Tom Riddle. So. I went across the valley to the Riddle house." His knuckles were white, his face was white, his eyes were dark and wild. "And I could have killed them."

"Tom," said Albus gently.

"I wanted to kill them," he said. "They left me there. All those years, and my father, and my grandparents, they left me there. The last thing my mother said to him was, 'What about the baby?' and the last thing he said to her--" He cut himself off. There was so much pain etched into his face that Albus shuffled off the bed, and, standing over him, pulled his head to his chest like he was still a small child. He had felt abandoned, once. It was a wound that had never truly healed, and it had taken him years to realize the extent of the damage.

Tom was not crying. He could feel the boy's breathing even out, and slow, like he had been on the verge of it, only to be pulled back by Albus's presence.

"I didn't kill them," he said, into Albus's hospital robe. "I wanted to. I thought they didn't deserve any better. Only--only you had been so upset by Warren's death, and that had been an accident. I thought if I killed three Muggles you'd never forgive me."

Albus's anger that Aberforth had shared his secret--although it was not only Albus's secret, for Aberforth had been there, and Arianna had been his sister too--dissipated. He wondered how Tom might have reacted, had he not known, had he thought that Albus would not even give him a chance to explain himself, had he thought that Albus was suddenly abandoning him after five years of the closest thing to adult support he'd ever had. It would have seemed terribly cruel. What Aberforth had said about Albus believing he could predict what others would do applied to Tom as well, and the apparent betrayal would have rankled. Would have festered. And three Muggles would very probably be dead.

"The question is not whether I would forgive you, but whether you would forgive yourself," he said. "But I am glad you did not kill them, and have their deaths stain your soul."

"My soul," repeated Tom, skeptically. 

"Yes, your soul," said Albus. He sat back down on the bed. "You may not think much of it now, but when you are my age you are likely to regret things. And before you refer to my situation, do remember that you are currently summering at the Malfoys'."

Tom looked sulky rather than skeptical at that. Albus stopped himself: he would have to tread lightly on that topic. The boy did so terribly hunger for love. "I do want what is best for you," he said. "And even if you never regretted the deed, it would expose you to Azkaban."

"I suppose you're right," said Tom finally. "Azkaban seems unpleasant, even more so than my uncle's hovel. I much prefer Hogwarts."

Albus smiled at the bravado, and at the reminder of the castle, which still felt like home. He could not wait to return there. Perhaps he'd take a page from Tom's book and sneak out, Apparate to the Hog's Head, recuperate there until he could get back to the school or the smell of Aberforth's goats drove him out. "I never did congratulate you on your post, did I?"

"No," said Tom, "you didn't."

"You'll be good at it." It wasn't entirely a lie. He knew his subject, knew all subjects, but Albus suspected he wouldn't care much for the students themselves--not that that had ever stopped anyone from being appointed a professor--but he might grow into it with time. Albus suspected--hoped--he would, and not only for Tom's sake.

"Thank you, sir," said Tom, and smiled.

Albus patted his hand. "And now you'd best be going before the Healers storm in to throw you out. You wouldn't want to ruin a promising teaching career by getting caught breaking the law."

"Of course not, sir," said Tom. And then--almost as shyly as he had when he'd been eleven--he hugged Albus.

Albus hugged him back, one hand patting his shoulder almost wearily. This was going to be difficult--but then, he should have expected it. Children weren't easy, and neither was love. In comparison, he thought, his ribs suddenly aching, defeating a dark lord was easy.

**Author's Note:**

> Canon divergence: Slughorn, not Dumbledore, delivers the welcome to the wizarding world speech to Tom.


End file.
